Cisco Takes On 10 GigE Competition

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mugwhump 12/5/2012 | 12:20:21 AM

re: Cisco Takes On 10 GigE Competition << He also mentioned that the sup720 is orderable today and orders will ship in 4-6 weeks. I can't order one, so I can't verify, but I never had any issues in the past with any info that I got from him. He did mention that some linecards will use both 20Gig channels and some will use a single channel.>>

Better find a new SE! While you may not be able to order one, I can. Unfortunately, the part #s, prices and lead times are not available for ANY of the "announced" modules. Our technical staff just roll their eyes and mutter about IOS issues. Past history has shown that even when the products are orderable, the IOS will either not be ready and when it is will have more bugs than Minnesota in June.

The Achilles Heel for Cisco is, and has been for a long time, IOS. We spend an inordinate amount of time trying to sort out issues, and each new module or feature that is introduced just makes the situation worse.

I go back to my original thought that this is a marketing announcement designed to create FUD. These products are a long way from shipping and an even longer way from being stable.

There are other options out there, and this is a ploy to slow down sales of competing products. Nothing more.

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dwdm 12/5/2012 | 12:20:17 AM

re: Cisco Takes On 10 GigE Competition mugwhump,

What options out there that can give me 40Gbps per slot of real math? I do know F10 is the only vendor that can provide wire rate 10Gig. I also need IPv6 support (at least within the next 12 months), multicast and Jumbo Frames. All in hardware. Even if Cisco would take 6 months to get their stuff together, what other options do I have? we've been using the Supervisor engine 2 with great success. We had a couple of issues early on, and Cisco fixed them. For the past 2+ years we had zero issues.

I said that I do trust my Cisco SE because he hasn't been wrong yet. He has been our SE for the past 5 years. I'm willing to try what is out there if some other vendor has a better product. I haven't seen one yet.

DWDM

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Hanover_Fist 12/5/2012 | 12:20:16 AM

re: Cisco Takes On 10 GigE Competition To all the Cisco guys out there:

Sorry to burst your collective bubble:

1) 20 Gbps running in full duplex equates to 10 Gbps in half duplex and not 40 Gbps. Full duplex means "simultaneous bidirectional" capacity - meaning 10 Gigabits per second tranmsission to the switch fabric and 10 Gigabits per second transmission from the switch fabric.

2) There are two (2) channel connection to each slot (in the 6503, 6506, and 6509 chassis) and one (1) channel connection in slots 1-6 and two (2) channel connections in slots 9-13 of the 6513.

3) There are a total of sixteen (16) channel connections supported by the Sup720.

4) Each channed connection runs at 10 Gpbs = 20 Gbps full duplex

All this is documented by Cisco's own words in Table 2 of their Data Sheet called "Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switch" on page 12 (of 33. Look under the heading "Fabric Connection"

A direct quote:
"40 Gbps per slot; Dual-Fabric connection to moules at 20 Gbps full duplex per channel."

In other words, each slot has two 10 Gbps channels, providing 20 Gbps in full duplex, for a total of 40 Gbps per slot.

40 Gbps per slot multipled by 9 slots equals 360 Gbps...this is 1/2 the capacity they market...

Once worked for a guy who routinely said, "Never confuse selling from installing"...I pity the customer who never knew what the sales person was actually installing in their network.

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xerxes98 12/5/2012 | 12:20:15 AM

re: Cisco Takes On 10 GigE Competition The fabric provides 2 - 20 Gbps channels per slot. That's 2 - 40Gbps channels full duplex per slot. 40 x 2 x 9 = 720.

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Hanover_Fist 12/5/2012 | 12:20:13 AM

re: Cisco Takes On 10 GigE Competition Dude,
I'll draw a picture to explain where your logic fails.

[ <--10 Gbps from switch fabric
10GbE Port
[ -->10 Gbps to switch fabric

[ <--10 Gbps from switch fabric
10GbE Port
[ -->10 Gbps to switch fabric

----------------------------------------
40 Gbps per slot capacity

It's fairly straight forward.

Now tell me, how do you get 80 Gbps from this?

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CRC_Check 12/5/2012 | 12:20:12 AM

re: Cisco Takes On 10 GigE Competition
Users would refer to this as 20G (of full duplex capacity. After all yer basic TCP/IP does not do so well without those ACK/NAKs comming back does it? So enough with the half duplex BS in router math.

-C
==========================================
Dude,
I'll draw a picture to explain where your logic fails.

[ <--10 Gbps from switch fabric
10GbE Port
[ -->10 Gbps to switch fabric

[ <--10 Gbps from switch fabric
10GbE Port
[ -->10 Gbps to switch fabric

----------------------------------------
40 Gbps per slot capacity

It's fairly straight forward.

Now tell me, how do you get 80 Gbps from this?

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metroshark 12/5/2012 | 12:20:10 AM

re: Cisco Takes On 10 GigE Competition Making numbers look big using all means possible when quoting fabric/backplane bandwidth capacity is a trick most vendors use. In addition to double counting bits/packets in both directions, many vendors also state their raw bandwidth numbers. For example, a vendor who has a box that has 2 sets of 8 pairs of signals running at 2.5GHz per pair in each direction from the fabric to each line card will claim they have 20GB/s in each direction for a total of 40Gb/s bandwidth to each line card. However, typically, there will be a various types of overheads that will reduce the net usable bandwidth below this peak value.

This is why it is pointless to argue about what the new switching capacity numbers Cisco published really means until they publish the results for the RFC2889 fully-meshed forwarding performance test results for 16x10GigE and 32x10GigE configurations with the new Catalyst modules.

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Hanover_Fist 12/5/2012 | 12:20:10 AM

re: Cisco Takes On 10 GigE Competition CRC,
Thanks...that's what I've been yapping about.

Regardless of what Cisco marketing is "selling," Cisco SE's will be installing chassis that have 10 Gbps channel connections to the switch fabric module.

I'm willing to give Cisco the benefit of the doubt but this time, they've really broken the boundry or reality.

20 Gbps x 16 channels = 320 Gbps of capacity

Let's shed some light on the marketing hype - Cisco is not installing 720 Gbps of capacity until they sell YET ANOTHER upgrade to the Supervisory module, which will likely require a NEW chassis backplane and NEW interface modules - guess that will kill TCO and investment protection.

btw...to install the new Sup720 requires that you UPGRADE (replace) the existing fan tray and UPGRADE (replace) the existing power supplies - this puppy runs very hot and sucks down loads of power (2500 watts minimum).

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Hanover_Fist 12/5/2012 | 12:20:09 AM

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metroshark 12/5/2012 | 12:20:09 AM

re: Cisco Takes On 10 GigE Competition Is Cisco's announcement today the kiss of death for F10? I sort of think so. What ILEC/RBOC/IXC, etc would purchase gear from F10 now that Cisco has a cheaper, more compelling solution? Oh, and Cisco also has the service to go with it. F10 can't come close to Cisco's service infrastructure.

I don't think this is the end for F10. After this annoucement, Extreme will be able to buy them for a lot less, that's all.

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